Several boilers of Vikramaditya aircraft carrier out of order, ship returns to dockyard

Not all of the seven boilers failed, contrary to what some media have been saying, but four or less

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MOSCOW, September 17 (Itar-Tass) —— The trials of the Vikramaditya aircraft carrier (formerly the Admiral Gorshkov) in the Barents Sea have had to be suspended due to problems with its power plant, but the ship is returning to the Sevmash shipyards for examination and repairs on its own. Several boilers went out of order, a military shipbuilding enterprise told Itar-Tass on Monday.

“Not all of the seven boilers failed , contrary to what some media have been saying, but four or less. The aircraft carrier has not lost propulsion, and it is returning to Sevmash on its own, because a decision has been made to suspend testing. The power plant will be examined in detail and the amount of work to be done to repair the equipment determined. Then it will become clear how many boilers will have to be replaced, and how many repaired. Possibly, the repairs will be done in a “sparing” way, without ripping open the power plant compartment. At this point any talk about the size of damage are premature,” a source told Itar-Tass.

A source in the Russian defense-industrial complex has told Itar-Tass that the power plant’s failure has postponed the date of the aircraft carrier’s handover to India. “Under the best case scenario India may have the ship in the summer of 2013,” the source said.